Pandora's Jar: Women in the Greek Myths(65)

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For Euripides, the story of Phaedra and Hippolytus is an object lesson in divine malevolence. The play was awarded first prize by the judges at the Dionysia in 428 BCE, so they were obviously less shocked by this second draft than they were by the ill-received first one. And yet, it was not universally popular. As mentioned above, Aristophanes parodied it several times, specifically that line Hippolytus says to the nurse: My tongue swore, my mind was unsworn. It is a salutary lesson in the way values change through time: what do we care if Hippolytus means what he says? We live in a bureaucratic society where we have paperwork to fall back on if people renege on their promises. But for a fifth-century BCE Athenian audience with limited literate resources (for the most part), the power of oaths and pledges was immense. Zeus himself punished perjurers. If people went around swearing an oath and then refusing to keep it, the whole value system on which their society functioned was in jeopardy. Aristotle even tells us41 that Euripides was prosecuted for asebeia – ‘impiety’ – over this particular line in the play.

So what happens if the gods are removed from the story? That is a question answered by Racine, whose 1677 play Phèdre is probably better known to modern audiences than Euripides’ Hippolytus. Not least, in the UK, because the title role has been played by both Diana Rigg and Helen Mirren in productions of an adaptation by Ted Hughes. For Racine, the gods are scarcely in the picture at all; they are not characters in the play. And although much of the story remains the same, the shift in emphasis – and the consequences for how the characters experience blame and guilt, in particular – is remarkable.

In this version, Theseus is missing, presumed dead. Hippolytus has a (so far) unexpressed love for a young woman named Aricia, whose family are sworn enemies of Theseus. Hippolytus too is changed: his devotion to chastity is not because he despises all women and sex, but because he only desires one, whom he believes he cannot have. His friend Théraméne teases him for having scorned Venus too often in the past: now he is her sacrificial victim after all. Hippolytus is no slave to Aphrodite/Venus though: he wishes he could erase his father’s sexual conquests from memory (Plutarch might have been relieved to see mention of Periboea, Helen and Ariadne here, though Helen’s extreme youth when ‘stolen out of her bed in Sparta’ is glossed over once again).

If Hippolytus is less chaste than he is in Euripides’ play, so is Phaedra. She doesn’t just build a temple to Venus, but she ‘spent half my wealth to decorate it. From dawn to dusk I sacrificed beasts,/ Searching their bodies for my sanity.’ Here, Hughes is surely referencing the behaviour of another tragic, lovelorn queen: Dido, in Book Four of Virgil’s Aeneid, who peers into the entrails of sacrificial victims as though she is herself the haruspex, charged with reading entrails and interpreting the future. Phaedra has ‘pretended to hate him as my stepson’. In order to disguise her feelings, she really has played the role of the wicked stepmother. A servant named Panope (‘all-seeing’) now appears to tell Phaedra that Theseus is dead. The nurse (here named Oenone, but we’ll keep calling her the nurse to save confusion) is delighted: Phaedra can now declare her love to Hippolytus and marry him. She is free.

Hippolytus has also heard the news about Theseus and for him, too, it means freedom. He goes to release Aricia, who has been held prisoner under his father’s orders. The politics of who will succeed Theseus as king of Athens – the consequences for Hippolytus as both potential ruler and potential lover – expand to fill the space left by the absence of those Euripidean goddesses. Hippolytus declares his love to Aricia. But then Phaedra arrives and tells him – in a rather roundabout way – that she loves him. Specifically, she loves how much like a younger Theseus he is. Hippolytus is shocked by her declarations of passion and Phaedra tells him she detests herself ‘more than you can ever detest me’. Hippolytus has his sword in hand and she begs him to stab her: ‘This heart is utterly corrupt.’ The nurse breaks up this painfully awkward scene and Hippolytus tells Théraméne they must leave. Théraméne explains that Athens has chosen Phaedra’s son as their new king: in politics at least, Hippolytus has been outplayed.

Act Three begins with Phaedra writhing in mortification at the disgust Hippolytus clearly felt for her. The nurse consoles her: he hates all women, so at least you don’t have a rival. But then news comes that Theseus is alive after all, and will arrive at any moment (as with Greek plays, setting the action in one day does occasionally make for a dizzying pace). Phaedra is devastated: having revealed her love to Hippolytus when she thought she was a widow, she will now stand accused of infidelity. She is especially troubled by the damage this will wreak on her children’s reputation. The nurse, however, has a plan.

Theseus arrives with Hippolytus, but Phaedra refuses to speak to him and walks offstage. Hippolytus won’t explain, so Theseus goes after his wife to find out what is going on. But at the start of Act Four, we discover that Theseus believes his wife has been raped by his son: the nurse has already enacted her plan. Theseus criticizes his wife to the nurse only for having tried to spare Hippolytus, having ‘deferred his exposure for too long’. It is a huge change in the story: the nurse makes the false allegation, not Phaedra.

Theseus and Hippolytus argue, and Theseus curses his son, just as in Euripides’ version. But, here, Phaedra is still alive. Hippolytus storms off, and she comes onstage to admit the nurse’s deceit and defend her stepson’s reputation. But when Theseus tells her that Hippolytus loves Aricia, jealousy overwhelms her. This man who had been so repulsed by her does have feelings for a woman; she has a rival after all. Having been on the verge of destroying her reputation to protect the innocent young man she loves, she changes her mind. ‘I am the only one he cannot stand! And I came rushing here to defend him!’